20081225

It may piss off the Christians to hear this, but Christmas doesn’t have much to do with anything in the Bible. In fact, take away the nativity scene and the rest of the holiday comes from pretty much every European tradition except the Christian one. The Romans were exchanging gifts during Saturnalia long before the three wise men showed up at Jesus’ house (yes, house – we’ll get to that in a bit), and the only thing that the Bible has to say about Christmas trees is to condemn them.

As far as the birth of Christ thing, of the four books of the Bible that discuss the life of Jesus – the Gospels – only two of them talk about his birth. And, given the Bible’s track record so far, it should not surprise you to learn that even those two books disagree with each other.

This starts making sense when you accept the most important fact about Jesus: he did not exist. Jesus was merely the cooption of pagan resurrection god myths by a particular Jewish sect in search of their long-awaited messiah. This is fairly obvious when you compare the four Gospels. They mostly agree on the gist of things, but they disagree on the details, which is precisely what you would expect from oral traditions. Furthermore, when you compare that gist to other Mediterranean and Near Eastern religious traditions, you find that they track fairly well: Greek sects had their resurrection gods; Egyptian sects had their resurrection gods; and so forth. Everything Jesus did, some other god had done before him.

As for the date of Christmas – December 25th – well, that’s not Christian in origin either. In fact, the modern holiday season, whether represented by Christmas, Hanukah, Eid, Kwanzaa, or some other holiday, is merely the modern version of the ancient celebration of the winter solstice – that time of year when the days stop getting shorter and start getting longer again. The Romans even celebrated the winter solstice on the same day that Christians would later celebrate Christmas, December 25th. A popular myth is that early Christians intentionally set the date of their holiday around the time of the Roman Saturnalia festival, so as to partake in the festivities without drawing attention to themselves. However, Christianity was little more than a local cult at that time, and it is unlikely that anything like Christmas had begun to develop so early in the religion’s existence.

The first hard evidence we have of the celebration of Christmas on December 25th does not occur until the year 354CE. It just so happens that that date was already in use by pagan Romans as the birth of Sol Invictus, the “Unconquered Sun”. Jesus has always had a sun god aspect, which is also in keeping with the other religions from which he is liberally borrowed, and which was especially obvious in early portrayals of him. As the Roman Empire transitioned from the Greco-Roman to the Christian religion, dies natalis Solis Invicti simply became Christmas, because the god celebrated was one and the same. And both gods, in this context, were simply symbolic representations of the solstice.

It has become something of a tradition that, around this time every year, we have to listen to the right-wing bitch and moan about the supposed “war on Christmas”. To any observer, however, Christmas is in no danger of disappearing. The truth is that Christmas has always been a secular holiday with religious overtones that change depending on the particular religious tradition of its observers. It is also true that the most rabidly religious groups are not the most fervent in their celebrations of Christmas, but in their attempts to suppress and ban them.

There is no “war on Christmas”. However, there is a right-wing fundamentalist Christian “war” on every other holiday that might be celebrated this time of year. What concerns the right-wing is not that their holiday might be taken away somehow, but that someone somewhere might not believe and practice in the same fashion that they do. The right-wing is threatened by any reminder that they do not possess undisputed cultural hegemony. Fundamentalist Christianity, with its inherent paranoia and delusions of persecution, makes the perfect foundation for a homegrown American proto-fascist movement, and that is precisely what it has become over the last few decades. Christmas, being an emotionally-charged topic among its followers, has been co-opted into a symbol of their supposed persecution at the hands of domestic enemies.

Also present is the right-wing embrace of anti-intellectualism, which has reached such an extent that the right-wing now seems proud of its ignorance. Its members are loathe to learn about the world, because, in learning, they might discover something that would make them question their beliefs; since they already know that they are right – because they believe they are right – then that new learning must be wrong, and, in trying to divert them off the “straight and narrow path” of their own egoism, intrinsically evil. Thus, they divide the world into neat boxes, but only two: fundamentalist Christian, and everything else. It is this anti-intellectualism, this fear of being wrong, that causes them to miss and dismiss the long history of the winter solstice as the ultimate multi-cultural celebration.

And it is this anti-intellectualism which leads them never to know that what they purport to celebrate as the birth of Jesus is not even true Biblically, for that fear of learning extends even to their own holy book, which they dare not actually read because they might be wrong.

As I mentioned above, only two of the four Gospels even mention the birth of Jesus. Those are Matthew and Luke, and they disagree with each other. The nativity scene, and the well-known story of Jesus’ birth, is a mishmash of both, taking the gaudiest bits of one and mixing it with the gaudiest bits of the other.

For example, the three wise men only appear in Matthew. Here they visit Jesus at his parents’ house in Bethlehem. The manger only appears in Luke, where Joseph and Mary must travel to Bethlehem for the purposes of census (itself a dubious idea) and find all the inns to be full. Unfortunately, the three wise men are absent from Luke’s version. Thus, the three wise men come from Matthew, and the manger comes from Luke, with the discrepancies conveniently forgotten.

The shepherds only appear in Luke, where they are visited by the angel while guarding their flocks. This bit is also incorporated into the standard nativity story. However, shepherds don’t guard their flocks in the field in the middle of winter, not even in the Near East (where it is not perpetually hot). In other words, according to the Bible itself, Jesus could not have been born on December 25th. Given his role as a resurrection god, it is probable that he was initially identified with the vernal equinox, which marks the approach of spring; only when the myth incorporated the solar aspect was his birthday changed to the winter solstice.

Herod and his slaughter of the first-borns only appears in Matthew, and is a wild fiction. The contemporaneous Roman historian Josephus produced a detailed biography of Herod that makes no mention of such an event, nor does any other history produced at the time (and such an event would have drawn notice). Meanwhile, in Luke only, Joseph and Mary travel to the temple in Jerusalem after Jesus’ birth to offer thanks to Yahweh for his birth, but this is missing from the standard tale, which ends in a strange anticlimax (Jesus is born, and that’s that until Easter).

As I mentioned above, these disparate tales make sense if they are considered to be different versions of the same oral tradition. The other two Gospels, Mark and John, begin with Jesus already having started his ministry. In all versions of the myth, the death and resurrection is the important part (though, again, they differ on the details), but Matthew and Luke seek to emphasize the deific nature of Jesus, as well as his Hebrew lineage (this places him within the context of messianic Judaism).

The obvious question here is why a story sprang up that incorporated bits and pieces from each of two different versions of the same tale, without anyone noticing the discrepancies. I mean, couldn’t they read? Well, as it turns out, no, they couldn’t. Not only was most of the population of Europe illiterate until well into the modern age, but the Catholic Church also did its utmost to maintain strict control over how the religion was presented to its followers. Only members of the church were permitted to “interpret scripture”, and, even then, they had to interpret it within an established framework; to do otherwise was to risk being branded a heretic. With the traditional Christian penchant for the gaudy and saccharine, it is likely that the standard tale was the result of a new and underground kind of oral tradition, one for the common people in which Jesus may be born in the most lowly of states (a manger), but in which even the wise and the powerful recognize his superiority and eventual triumph. In that sense, the Christmas story becomes a pseudo-proletarian version of the resurrection god myth.

Meanwhile, as Christianity spread throughout pagan Europe, it incorporated the traditions of the locals so as to win their support. Thus, the Catholic Church incorporated its pantheon of saints, which appealed to the locals’ traditions of multiple gods with specific domains of power. Christmas, likewise, expanded from its origins in the Roman Saturnalia and Sol Invictus festivals and adopted local customs such as mistletoe, stockings on the fireplace, and the Christmas tree decorated in lights.

Ah, the Christmas tree! Here we find the ultimate irony of the “war on Christmas” kerfuffle, because this is, in fact, the only Christmas tradition that the Bible does mention:

Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. (Jeremiah 10:2-4, emphasis mine)

Odd, isn’t it, how the Bible itself may be the biggest culprit in the “war on Christmas” of them all!

Today we celebrate the birth of one of the greatest persons to have ever lived – indeed, one of the architect’s of the modern world: Isaac Newton.

Among his accomplishments, Newton helped establish a mechanistic foundation for the universe, by providing mathematical descriptions of motion. His ideas helped push back the darkness of pre-Enlightenment thought, and are still very much applicable today. Even if they had been fully surpassed by the theories of later physicists like Einstein, however, that is just further evidence of the strength of the scientific method that Newton helped exemplify, for science does not hold onto ancient ideas just because they are tradition and make one feel good about oneself.

So today, we celebrate by finding something that is staying at rest, as objects that are at rest tend to stay, and, by applying an external force and witnessing the equal and opposite reaction of the object, we observe that that the force of its new momentum is equal to the external force applied.

And then we eat an apple. (That part may be myth, but at least we will acknowledge that fact.)

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ponzo

20081220

I know I never write these things even after I make an effort to do so. You want to know why? Because reading the Bible is bad enough; writing about it is even worse.

Much of the Bible seems like housekeeping, in which details are included just because they are part of the chronology. Thus, we spent entire chapters learning why some obscure mountain or cave bears a particular name, when that location will never be mentioned again. This is not just housekeeping, but pointless housekeeping – like tidying up a building that’s about to be bulldozed.

There is no moral message contained in these passages. These passages do not serve as prologue to a moral message. They are “history”, except that they are mostly a-historical, made-up fantasy.

So we come to Genesis 23, in which Sarah finally dies. The trailer-trash Sarah has exemplified some of the most immoral behavior you might ever come across, and she will not be missed. Sarah’s death is dispensed with in two verses; the remaining 18 are devoted to Abraham negotiating for the purchase of a cave in which to bury her, and a discussion of why that cave is called what it is called.

Housekeeping.

Genesis 24 picks up a bit, but not in a good way (unless you enjoy unintentional laughter). Abraham is now worried about his son Isaac not having a wife. Since this is the Bronze Age, Isaac cannot be expected to go off and find his own wife, so Abraham sends his slave out to find one for him.

You really need to read this chapter just to enjoy its repetitiveness. It tells the same story, in almost precisely the same words, three times – and almost tells it once more! In the end, the slave winds up finding Rebekah, who agrees to become Isaac’s wife.

We can finally say good riddance to the abominable Abraham in Genesis 25. I guess he won’t be pulling that “she’s my sister” bullshit on anybody else now. The chapter then proceeds to discuss the birth of Isaac’s two sons, Esau and Jacob.

Jacob will be one of the ancestors of Judaism and later Christianity and Islam. Like his forebears, he is a shining example of how not to treat other people. His brother Esau comes to him one day dying of hunger and begs for sustenance. Jacob agrees to give it to him, but only if Esau sells him his birthright. Thus, for the price of a bowl of beans and a piece of bread, Esau’s descendants are robbed of their rightful inheritance and must become Jacob’s servants.

20081218

On the heels of my last post, John Avarosis has a great point. If Obama considers holding anti-gay views to be mere “disagreement”, then where are the racists? Where are the anti-Semites? Will he be having a Klan rally at the inauguration? Will the skinheads put on their own parade?

The parallel between being black and being gay is not perfect. Slavery in America was based on skin color, not sexual orientation. The double-standards gay people face today parallel the abuses of American apartheid in only the vaguest fashion. Moreover, gay people can always “pass”, whereas that option was never available to the majority of blacks.

Yet we are a people who deserve to be recognized as people, not as a sexual preference. Is that not the same thing that motivated the Civil Rights Movement: the desire to be judged, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr., not by the color of one’s skin, but by the content of his character?

So, if hating us and denying us equality under the law is a valid “point of view”, then what about all the other points of view? The Obama team can troll the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center; I’m sure they can flesh out the post-partisan makeup of the inauguration with a few of the groups listed there.

It is pretty amazing that the Obama team would select Rick Warren to deliver the “invocation” at the inauguration in January. The gay community in particular is aghast, given Warren’s outspoken anti-gay views, as well as his vocal support for Proposition 8.

Obama’s supporters seem to have short memories. I don’t, unfortunately. Yeah, I did vote for Obama in November, but I’m not sure if I did it out of support, or just to piss off the right-wingers. Obama’s mantra of “Change” was revealed to be nothing but a cheap catchphrase way back in June.

That’s when Obama endorsed the FISA Expansion Bill, which retroactively legalized BushCo’s evisceration of the Fourth Amendment. When pressed on the issue, his defense used the same fear-mongering language of the Republicans. It was that moment when the tone of his presidency was set for me.

It was just a couple of weeks ago when everyone was up in arms over Obama’s protection of Joseph Lieberman. The Democrats were so eager to achieve that 60-seat majority in the Senate that they simply forgave Lieberman all his sins, despite knowing full well that he would side with his true Republican allies when the pressure was on. Also, the Democrats – like the Republicans – also believe that they are above the law and the people they purportedly represent; Lieberman had committed no crime, because there was no one (important enough) to commit a crime against.

One might be tempted to ask why, in the 21st century, it is necessary to include an “invocation” to the imaginary Great Sky Fairy when inaugurating a new president. If anybody bothered to read the Constitution – besides us radical leftists, that is – then they’d realize that the president serves the people, not “God”.

Furthermore, one might be surprised that even Obama and his progressives feel that they must kowtow to the demands of the Religious Right. They have fallen for the myth that fundamentalist Christianity represents a valid theological position, instead of being a reactionary social movement wrapped in a corrupt heresy.

Or maybe Obama feels that this gesture will placate the rabid denizens of the far right that he is not, in fact, the “Antichrist”. If so, then he is obviously willing to cast aside the support of his own people for a group that will never, ever, ever support him. This shows once again the absurdity of American politics, in which the majority can repudiate the proto-fascist ideas of the fringe, and yet, when all things are said and done, our leaders still embrace that fringe.

FISA. Lieberman. Warren. Who wants to bet that the next betrayals will be named after torture, Guantanamo, and Iraq?

20081207

A couple of days ago, I commented that fundamentalist Christians – they of the anti-abortion, “pro-life” movement – don’t really give a damn about babies. It is obvious that they don’t much care for children after they are born either. Now they are cheering the impending passage of an executive order that would strip an untold number of American women of their reproductive rights in the guise of “conscience rights”. But don’t be fooled: fundamentalist Christians have been waging a culture war since the inception of their heresy in the late 19th century, and babies – unborn or otherwise – are merely a prop in it.

The United States is the wealthiest country in the world. The US spends more than any other country on health care. Yet, according to the results of a 2007 study by Save the Children, the US ranks 36th in terms of infant mortality. That is behind virtually all of “socialist” Western Europe (including the European Union as a whole), and even Cuba.

It is revealing that, the last time this study was conducted in 1997, the US ranked 28th. In other words, since the “pro-life” George W. Bush came to power, the US has actually declined in this ranking! But that should not surprise us.

Looking at the United States itself, we see another revealing trend. Of the 15 states with the worst infant mortality rates, twelve of them are located in the so-called “Bible Belt” – i.e., those states with the highest percentage of fundamentalist Christians. For the record, the District of Columbia is unranked, since it is not a state; however, DC has the highest rate of infant mortality in the country. Still, is having eleven states in the top 15 any better than having twelve?

Well, not really. Of those states that voted for the “pro-life” John McCain in the 2008 presidential election, eleven of them – you guessed it – are among those 15 with the worst infant mortality rates. Conversely, of the 15 states with the lowest infant mortality rates, eleven voted for the pro-choice Barack Obama. (Again, to be fair, DC voted for Obama, but has the worst infant mortality rate. Meanwhile, Utah has the best infant mortality rate in the country, but voted for McCain.)

Those exceptions don’t change the big picture, though. If fundamentalist Christians and Republicans really cared about the health of children, they would be working on improving the infant mortality rate in the United States as a whole and in those particular states where they have the most power.

This same hypocrisy is revealed by how the Republicans deal with evidence that pollution results in higher levels of infant mortality. This article from the Kalamazoo Gazette from April of this year details how Republican congressmen are blocked the release of just such a report. If the health of the “unborn” were so important to them as they claim, they would have taken this report and run with it, whether the study was complete or not. After all, a lack of evidence did not stop them from doing that very thing with the false hypothesis of “post-abortion syndrome”, even though no legitimate study has shown a link between having an abortion and experiencing depression afterwards.

We all remember the debacle of S-CHIP, in which Bush vetoed a bill expanding health care to underprivileged children for the most dubious of political reasons. They spare no time in providing tax cuts to the wealthy, but the health of children who cannot afford treatment in America’s broken medical system means nothing to them. It is that which captures the true meaning of children to this inhuman mob.

Children – babies – are unwilling pawns in the right-wing’s quest to roll back the clock on women’s rights. They do not want to “save babies”, but control wombs. They remember when women were solely the possessions of men, and they will not stop until they have regained their tarnished golden age.

I’m trying to make Ponzo Reads the Bible a regular feature, and Sunday seems like the most appropriate day for it. Unfortunately, the first entry happens to concern Genesis 21, which is mostly boring as shit, so we’re going to skip much of it. The first half does deserve mention, though, because it not only introduces a major character, but reveals what kind of a person Sarah is.

Sarah gives birth to Isaac. Sarah, of course, is not only Abraham’s wife, but his sister, so we are already in weird ass territory here. Sarah is also over 90 years old at this point, so it’s even weirder. Fortunately, Sarah has been receiving fertility treatments from God: therefore, Isaac.

Of course, a 90-year-old woman giving birth is biologically dubious, but we do not question the pumpkin carriage or the ruby slippers; all fairy tales need their supernatural elements. Thus, we will take it in stride and move ahead.

Earlier we felt some sympathy for Sarah, but, if that hasn’t already evaporated, it will now. Since Sarah has her own kid now, she gets jealous of Hagar and her son Ishmael. You may remember Hagar: when Sarah was still infertile, she forced her slave girl Hagar to bear Abraham a son, Ishmael. Well, now Sarah wants them out of the house, because they offend her.

I’m no fan of Abraham or God, but I am willing to cut them a break here. God promises that Hagar and Ishmael will be taken care of, and that is indeed the case. Sarah, on the other hand, couldn’t care less whether Hagar and Ishmael live or die. So fuck her.

This chapter now goes off on one of those odd Biblical non-sequiturs and discusses the origins of a well, so this is where we’ll skip ahead to Genesis 22. I was willing to cut God and Abraham some slack a moment ago, but this is the chapter that makes me want to take both of them out back and ensure that no one ever finds the bodies.

This is the part where Abraham almost murders his own son at God’s request.

God decides to “tempt” Abraham, but God is really testing his loyalty. He demands that Abraham offer Isaac as a sacrifice. What is remarkable here is that Abraham does not suffer any moral qualms about this. He does not question why God would make such a demand. He does not resist in the slightest. He merely packs up his ass (the other kind), selects his best sacrificin’ knife, and sets off to the altar.

Of course, we know that God relents at the very end, with Isaac bound on the altar and the knife in Abraham’s hand. What does this say about God, though? He demands loyalty to him over familial relationships, regardless of the damage it does. What did Isaac think about his father after this? What was their relationship like? Is this the kind of human society that God expects his followers to create: one in which no one can trust anyone else? Even worse, this passage has served as the template for subsequent Christian families rejecting their children when they didn’t turn out the way that they wanted.

In other words, these are the “family values” that fundamentalists truly have.

Any God that would demand that its servant demonstrate his loyalty by killing his own son is simply evil. And any father that would blindly and robotically follow such a command is more than a “bad father”, but a sociopath.

There is more to consider here, though, because there are two versions of this story. As we’ve discussed previously, the Pentateuch is comprised of at least four different source documents. Well, the Isaac sacrifice story appears in two of them. The one people are familiar with is the one in which God relents at the very end; this is basically the Disney version of an older, original tale. You see, in that source document, Isaac never appears again after this. In other words, originally, God let Abraham go through with the sacrifice.

There is evidence that human sacrifice was practiced by the forerunners of the Israelites. By the time the Bible was compiled, the practice had mostly shifted to animal proxies. There are still passages in the Bible that reflect the earlier practice, though; most of them were edited out, but reconstructing the source documents reveals them. This is one such example.

Genesis 22 ends with – what else? – a boring genealogy. Hopefully things will pick up next time. (Actually, they don’t.)

20081204

Via Right Wing Watch, we learn that the fundies are upset about something (as usual). In the words of one of their spokesbigots:

Appearing as a sarcastic, rotund Christ, Black distorts the Bible and condones shameful, homosexual acts. Associating Christ with perverse activity is an affront to all people of faith, especially Christians. Apparently Black and company find it hilarious to falsely accuse Christians while they intentionally distort the Bible. Black ought to apologize.

That’s in reference to the Prop 8 Musical, in which Black appears as Jesus. As usual, though, it is the Christians who do the distorting. At no point does Black’s Jesus distort the Bible; he merely points out some other things that the Bible condemns (or advocates) as strongly as homosexuality, and that fundamentalist Christians pick and choose the rules they want to follow.

This is in the same vein as those creationists who maintain that Christianity was against slavery in the 19th century. It is hard to believe that even they are so ignorant of history (of biology, sure), so one can only conclude that they are being willfully mendacious: their particular brand of religious heresy arose out of their support of slavery.

Once again, we see that the “values” people wouldn't know a value if it snuck up behind them and…well, you get the idea.

Fundamentalism is often treated as if it were just another point on the natural continuum of religion. Thus, on one end, you have liberal religionists, and you have conservatives on the other. This hides the truly radical nature of fundamentalist belief, however, because there is a profound difference between conservatism and fundamentalism.

Conservative religious belief may be relatively inflexible, but it remains within the boundaries of mainstream religious belief. Fundamentalism embraces the absurd fringe. It is an aberration within the evolution of a religion.

In fact, fundamentalism isn’t really a religious movement in the theological sense. Instead, it is a social movement cloaked in the guise of religion, both to win the support of ill-informed religionists, as well as to disguise its true motives.

Fundamentalism arises in a society in response to changing social conditions. It occurs when a rigidly traditionalist society undergoes massive and rapid change to which it cannot or will not adapt. Rather than adapt to changing times, fundamentalists seek to resist them. Although it was their inflexibility that led to their loss of social status, their response is merely to insist that this was the result of not having been sufficiently inflexible. Effectively, they hope to undo the change by doing the same things they were doing before, only moreso.

Fundamentalist Christians would have you believe that they represent a line of thought stretching back for millennia. In fact, fundamentalism is a relatively recent development, having originated in the final decades of the 19th century. It originated in the American south following its loss in the Civil War. For two decades, southern society had been based on slavery, and Christianity played a primary role in justifying this practice. Slavery was seen as God’s will, and its reinstitution became the focus of fundamentalism in the post-war south. This remained the case until the Civil Rights movement finally broke the control fundamentalists held over southern society.

Actually, that still remains the case. However, it is no longer socially acceptable to express racist sentiments in the open. As a proxy, fundamentalists have adopted homosexuals as their new target of bigotry. They also continue to work against the rights of women; don’t think for a second that anti-abortion activists give a damn about “unborn babies”.

As I observed yesterday, fundamentalist Christians have largely stopped pretending that there is anything except hate that motivates them. Their beliefs originate from hatred and bigotry; without someone to hate, their lives are meaningless.

20081203

Fundamentalist Christians like to complain about their “religious freedom” being taken away. Of course, they’re never concerned when someone else’s religious freedom is taken away, so that right there should make you question their integrity on the principle.

Another thing is that, when they talk about religious freedom, they always use some standard examples. For example, if gay marriage were legalized, then it would become illegal for Christians to rail against the abomination of homosexuality. If religion cannot be taught in science classes, then Christians cannot accuse “Darwinists” and atheists of corrupting the morals of America’s youth (or something).

The same goes for abortion, contraception, and reproductive rights. It also goes for Muslims, who, as we all know, are terrorists – every last one. Pick your own favorite minority, and somehow fundamentalists Christians have conflated hating it with the concept of religious freedom.

It is entirely disingenuous for fundamentalist Christians (or any other variety) to pretend to care about religious freedom. After all, fundamentalism – particularly its American variant – is merely fascism with the hooks cut off the swastika. To the fundamentalist, there is only one kind of religious freedom: the freedom to believe what they tell you to believe, goddammit! I mean, amen.

It has become virtually impossible lately for the Christian fascists in our midst to cloak their true motives anymore. The whole Prop 8 outrage was but the most obvious example of how religion has become nothing but a cover for bigotry. These are the same people who have hijacked the word “family”, and who are attempting to hijack the word “person” as a cover for reproductive control.

In a way, blowing their cover is a good sign. It shows that they know they are on the wrong side of history, and that their days are numbered. However, a cornered animal is dangerous, and these animals are not only cornered, but fucking rabid as well. When the word “Jesus” drips from their lips, it does so in a coating of thick frothy saliva.